Thanks to Arethusa, I read this humdinger of an article from the Guardian featuring two writers, Daisy Cummins and Julie Bindel, squaring off from their respective positions on the relative quality and contribution of Mills & Boon novels.
Daisy, who writes them, says that “The women who populate these books come from as disparate and wide-ranging economic situations as the women who read them. To say they are all mindless romantic illiterates yearning to be saved is lazy ignorance.”
Well, yes, sweeping generalizations about all women are not wise. One or more of us will beg to differ – especially those of us who (a) read romance and (b) bristle at the idea that we’re mindless illiterates. It is a lazy generalization that I’ve seen too much of, personally speaking.
Meanwhile, Bindel, who isn’t mad at the readers or the writers of the novels (who then is she so fired up about? The publisher? Mr. Mills and Mr. Boon who thought up the great business venture?) counters that, “My loathing of M&B novels has nothing to do with snobbery. I could not care less if the books are trashy, formulaic or pulp fiction – Martina Cole novels, which I love, are also formulaic. But I do care about the type of propaganda perpetuated by M&B. I would go so far as to say it is misogynistic hate speech.”
Bindel then delivers the final blow that made me wheeze and roll my eyes at the same time: “This is what heterosexual romantic fiction promotes – the sexual submission of women to men. M&B novels are full of patriarchal propaganda. I can say it no better than the late, great Andrea Dworkin. This classic depiction of romance is simply “rape embellished with meaningful looks”.
Oh, please. Can we all just take a deep breath? I’m the first to defend the genre and my deep abiding love of it, but we are talking about romance novels here. Are they a primary factor contributing to the continuation of the subjugation of women? Do women get raped because they read romance? Are they asking for it if their copy of “The Flame and the Flower” peeks out of their handbag? Is Roe v. Wade in the US teetering on the edge of being overturned because someone read “The Boardroom Sheik’s Remodeled Kitchen With a Virgin on the Corian Counter?” Hardly! Sweet weeping Moses in a steaming shit sidecar.
As Candy stated in her review of Dark Lover, the patterns of Othering and depictions of fertility are fascinating and revealing in romance novels, and certainly the genre as a whole is ripe for literature folks to uncover unstudied areas of narrative portrayal. But what does “The Roman Sword Master’s Giant Sword Of Mighty Wang” reveal about the reader and the writer of very alpha-male romantic fiction? Yes, it’s not fiction to my personal tastes, and I do find it hilarious that many writers and readers would really rather not have dinner with the buttnoid alpha bonehead hero they enjoy, but is it the end of the known world for all women that some women enjoy reading that particular storyline? Nice of Brindel to throw that caveat in there that she doesn’t blame the writers or the readers (Thanks!) but is the existence of romance fiction Keeping The Womyn Down?
Please. Women harshing on the freedom of other women to read and wank off to whatever fantasy they want is what’s Keepin’ the Womyn Down.
You’re welcome. 😀
The best part about the whole thing was the Bindel’s argument was built on book blurbs and 40+ year old quotes. Oh, I chuckled and I chortled.
I found the positive defence only marginally better—seemed to be all fluff and pretty flowers.
Poor ol’ Harlequin. You’d never know that they had different lines which did not involve very very tanned sheikhs and “swarthy” Greek tycoons.
I spent several hours being oppressed by Nora Roberts and J. D. Robb in the past few weeks. Enjoyed myself a lot (and avoided harming monkeys). Anyway, LaNora and my other favorite authors can oppress me any ole time they want.
My husband is very stubborn and determined to have his own way. Since he is (literally) a genius, most of his decisions are good, so going along with them is just common sense. When he does make a bad judgment, we have a fight and then I win, because he’s wrong for once.
I told him that romance novels are all a giant plot to make me a submissive wife. He wants to be the first one to know when it starts working. (Married 30 years in a couple of weeks, been reading romance for 40 years.)
E, you said:
“Maybe it’s so darn popular because so many women are glad to get confirmation that it’s okay for them to enjoy domesticity.”
Yes. Romance novels are about the only place I get validation for my choices in life.
I consider myself a feminist, because I don’t feel inferior or subordinate to men simply because of my gender. But the feminism I subscribe to is about choice – I made the choice to be a wife and homemaker. I made the choice to stay home with my child. I make the choice to indulge in a submissive sexuality, and I like reading books to which I can relate.
I can’t relate to people telling me I’m sexist and trapped and subjugated by my husband. I can’t relate to people who nitpick about romance novels but seem to completely overlook Bratz dolls and misinformation about fertility and all sorts of other things that are far more threatening to women as a whole, as a gender, than the choices of some of us to take on a traditional role that suits us, or to enjoy fiction about that role.
Articles like this miss the point completely. Feminism can’t be undone by fiction. It can be undone by the continued insistence of certain feminists who think men are and will always be enemies and oppressors and insist that those of us who love men, and love our lives, are just fooling ourselves.
I’m going to be very lazy and largely copy and paste the comments I made on the same topic on a different site (http://rapeandadverbs.blogspot.com/)
There is no doubt that some of the action and attitudes (certainly in the Presents line – which is the most popular line) are genuinely hopelessly out of date. (I mean, this whole concept of ‘mistresses’ that they use all the time: no-one these days thinks of a woman who is having a sexual relationship with a man as his ‘mistress’ – even if he is a billionaire and she’s a shop assistant. It’s absurd).
But for Bindel to label these books as misogynistic hate speech is ridiculous. And for her to suggest that the readers of these books regard them as accurately representing the proper world order is positively insulting.
I know that I buy (not many – perhaps 3 or 4 a year) M&Bs. I know (via blogging, not real life *grin*) that lots of intelligent professional women buy them. And I know that we all read these books with a particular mind-set: the same mind-set that I have if I watch an over-the-top soap opera. I don’t subscribe to the world-view (for want of a better term) put forward in them. I just read them for cheap, disposable entertainment.
I can’t say that I am a typical M&B reader. I honestly don’t know whether I am or not. But nor do I assume that everyone else is too lame-brained to make the same nice distinctions that I do.
One more thing….this Bindel chick has no clue As to what REAL hate in the world is today if she thinks that romance novels are hateful and oppressive. Hard for me to worry about what damage a romance novel is doing when there’s a war going on.
Good god…get a real problem, woman.
“The Boardroom Sheik’s Remodeled Kitchen With a Virgin on the Corian Counter?â€
*snort*
Thank you Sarah! You made my day.
Colleen, off to research how bloody damn cold a corian countertop would be on a virgin’s virginal ass.
// You go, Amelia Peabody.//
Hell yeah.
They’re mostly loving, but a lot of them have a healthy dose of sarcastic bitch, and I love them).
And Vicky Bliss too!
Oh yay…other people who love Mertz/Peters/Michaels. She’s my all-time favorite.
SPAM Blocker=getting45. Oh no I’m not!
What robin,—E and MplsGirl said 🙂
I don’t think Bindle is as mad as a hatter. She writes challenging and provocative articles for the Guardian, advocates powerfully for the legal rights of women and generally pisses off a lot of people by saying what she thinks. Sounds like a smart bitch to me.
Here’s her profile on The Guardian: http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/julie_bindel/profile.html
I don’t agree with what she wrote, but I think Mills & Boon in particular lends itself to this kind of critique in the way it brands itself. You can’t peddle books like “The sheikh’s captive wife” or “Virgin Slave, Barbarian King” and then express outrage when unflattering conclusions are drawn.
Now, of course, Brindle should have done her homework and based her arguments on recent releases, she should have toned her fiery language down (that’s not her style, though), but perhaps having read a few blurbs –
“Rashad was blackmailing her by insisting she pay up … as his concubine!”
“As far as he’s concerned Ellie’s a little firecracker who needs to be tamed. “
– she felt she didn’t need to.
It’s all very well *saying* Mills and Boon/ Harlequin have moved on, why don’t they show it?
See, for me it’s not about whether M&B/Harlequin/name your publisher “has moved on” or not—I take offense to the assumption that women as a whole are meek little mindless sheep who are effectively oppressed by the patriarchy through the romance genre.
Women are oppressed, no doubt about it, all around the world—and without the benefit of a genre fiction subliminal campaign.
As far as advocating legal rights for women… I would feel better if more emphasis was made on the freedom of each individual person to choose whatever makes him/her happy—as opposed to having someone else decide what should make me happy. (In other words, what Baconsmom said above—thank you for articulating it so well)
Fiction has the power to undo or empower any movement—social or political—including feminism. Writing is a powerful thing and shouldn’t be underestimated. (It shouldn’t be banned, either.)
I don’t agree with Bindel and the stereotypes that she slathers on romance novels and readers, but I am thankful that the Guardian ran this article because it’s making us all think about women and oppression and feminism—even if it’s pissing the heck out of some.
IMO, awareness and knowledge at the keys to empowering women and it’s really easy to slip into our daily lives and not think about it. When that happens, the insidious acts of oppression can occur.
Some of the books written in the romance genre do perpetuate the stereotypes of cultural roles for women. I do not believe that we live in a highly educated world, and without a healthy does of skepticism (or bitchiness) it can be really easy to fall in to the trap of mindlessly conforming to the stereotype. It’s one thing to choose a traditional path and quite another to follow it without making a conscious choice.
It’s important that we have awareness—knowledge and education are the keys to empowerment and choice.
Ms. Roberts, I don’t believe it’s the writers who intend the romance genre to be a tool of oppression. I think it’s that mysterious “they” to whom we always attribute things (they control us, they oppress us, whomever “they” are) who intend that. I would say it’s a tool of the patriarchy, except I don’t know who the patriarchy is, either. And that just sounds so . . . pretentious.
I want to clarify. I think that romance as a genre is INTENDED as a tool of oppression, but I don’t think it SUCCEEDS as one.
Yeah, I’m overthinking this. The girls on my block and I (a group of 5 moms with toddlers to kindergarten-aged kids) talk about this sort of thing a lot. We need something to talk about while the kids are playing together. . .
Baconsmom said: “I made the choice to be a wife and homemaker. I made the choice to stay home with my child.” Me too and I get so sick of people that tell me WHY I made that choice~I’m oppressed, the patriarchal society made me do it, etc etc etc. Nope. I did it because it was the right choice for ME and MY family. Maybe not someone else’s and that’s okay. Isn’t that what the feminist movement was all about~having the choice to do what you wanted with your life? Why does it now mean that the only way you can be fulfilled is to work outside the home?
What I don’t understand is why do people imply that someone who works a job outside the home that completely fulfills her is doing what she should with her life, but because I chose to stay home then I’m some sad sack, oppressed woman who just didn’t understand that she’d be much happier working outside the home. *snort* No thanks. I LOVE what I do and don’t feel unfulfilled thankyouverymuch.
And if my husband tried to rule me? bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha he could try, but *snorts again* he knows not to bother. *wink*
~Ms. Roberts, I don’t believe it’s the writers who intend the romance genre to be a tool of oppression. I think it’s that mysterious “they†to whom we always attribute things (they control us, they oppress us, whomever “they†are) who intend that. I would say it’s a tool of the patriarchy, except I don’t know who the patriarchy is, either. And that just sounds so . . . pretentious. ~
I don’t understand any of this. Just don’t. We who write the books don’t intend for them to be a tool of oppression, but the mysterious ‘they’ do. The they who can’t be identified.
The publishers? I know many publishers, and none I do know think about oppressing readers. Editors? Same goes.
I sit at my keyboard and write the books—as do many others in the genre. Yes, these books go through an editing and publishing process, a marketing process, but WE write them. I simply don’t see how you can say they’re intended as a tool of oppression (whether they succeed as such or not), but those who actually write them don’t do so with this intent.
I know what my intent is, every time I sit at the keyboard. It’s to tell a good, solid story to the best of my ability, and to tell a story which—at the core—spotlights love, emotions and the journey of two people toward each other.
I guess I’d like to know who they are who then takes that work with the intent of oppressing women.
Because if I believed this, I’d have to have a Come-to-Jesus talk with them. ASAP.
I don’t know who the patriarcy is either—because I had a father, four brothers. I have a husband, two sons and a grandson. You’d better believe none of them ever oppressed me. (Okay, maybe my Pop, but that was his job when I got out of line.)
I may not want to be The Billionaire Cowboy’s Secret Virgin Bride, but if I decide to read same, it sure as hell isn’t going to oppress me.
Ms. Roberts?
WORD!
And it’s oppresive to be “happy”? It’s opressive to read *fiction* about people being happy???
It’s opressive to think that two people being in a loving relationship, however it comes about, or ends up- is OPPRESIVE????
Color me totally clueless. Perhaps that’s what is so wrong with some people today- they are just too darned busy to think that “happy” has anything to do with them.
And just because I might read about vampires, pirates, or cowboys- doesn’t mean I *want* to be with one. That’s what *fiction* means. Going outside the realm of reality. If I want reality- I’ll take off my headphones right now and watch the news- thankyouverymuch!
( spamword- hospital91- may I never see one until………)
Yanno, I wrote this whole brilliant response that has either been sunk by the mists of time of my Thursday-night post-pub-quiz-wine-intake or destroyed by the SBTB power thst be. But the gist of it was this:
Bite me. I’m 25. Am I oppresed by M&B romances? No. Do I feel they undermine my feminist upbringing? Oh Please. Basically as a child of the nineties I’m espected to have half a dozen children who all play Beethoven sonatas and speak Mandarin by the age of 15 months, while I create cuisine-level meals for the whole family t breakfast.
Whereas, frankly? I don’t have children, for which I’m grateful not just for their benefit but for mine (because my God, what a lot of work), but for their continued wellbeing (yes-dear-now-shut-up-mummy-wants-to-concentrate-on-her-Richard-Armitage-DVDs is, I fear, not a valid parenting technique).
I can barely bring up a pair of kittens, because I have no clue of how much of my 24 hours I’m supposed to devote to my career, my family, and myself. 24 hours of each seems to be the recommended average.
Romance novels? Pah. My History teacher told me true enough, I’d never be able to find a balance. And you know what? She was right.
So much to reply to… I’ll take this piecemeal in order, if that’s okay. Also, I want to thank everyone for being reasonable and civilized in this discussion. It’s a difficult topic for me, and I’m feeling a little leery of being jumped on.
Ginger said: Personally one thing I like about my favorite romance authors is that domestic life isn’t always the end goal, and that one way the Right Guy is identified is that he supports the woman’s career and kicks in his share of the housework.
—>I acknowledge that because the bulk of my exposure to the genre is with one publisher (who’s quite respected, and several of their authors are perennial favs here), I may well have a skewed perspective. Can you recommend a couple of books that have this sort of situation? (Certainly that seems to jibe better with my reality. My male friends are all Good Guys.)
Poison Ivy said: I, too, have worried that people take fiction for gospel. But books are a reflection of our values; they do not determine them.
—>They can reinforce values, and thereby determine them (by eliminating options for change). See further discussion below.
Most people are the religion they are because it’s the religion in which they were raised. I submit that many (perhaps most) women who value domesticity, value it because it’s how they were raised. To my thinking, they never had a real choice, any more than an Episcopalian has a choice to be a Buddhist (or vice-versa). Sure, they could switch, but they’re not likely to. That’s 100% a matter of training and imprinting.
Like I said, being a wife and mother is a great gig for them who want it. But what gets up my nose is the number of young women who complain about the pressure they get from their mothers to hurry up and get married and have children. Or who agonize over how to snag a boy—any boy—when they’re teenagers. Where did they get those values?
(Don’t get me started on parents who buy their girls crap such as the Rose Petal Cottage, which offends me in ways I can’t even begin to describe. Where is the soft playset of a laboratory? No, the only option is the cooking-and-cleaning-in-Pinkville option.)
The “choice” is illusionary. There is no choice if the role-imprinting begins with baby’s first pink booties.
(And if you say that my choice to be a self-sufficient career woman is equally illusionary, the result of my upbringing, I would reply: Hell, yeah. And sometimes I get mad at my folks for encouraging me to swim upstream. That’s life.)
(See? Not saying anyone is weak or sheeplike. Just describing a situation as I see it.)
Christine Merrill said: If women need to turn to romance to assure them that it’s OK for them to enjoy domesticity, then I say “Go romance.†Because if that is seriously what they want to do, they deserve some affirmation for it. It’s a hard job.
—>Yes, it is a very hard job. No wonder half the population is happy to fob it off on the other half, eh? And then to undervalue it! That’s some trick.
But I’m torn. On the one hand, I do want people to have reassurance that they’ve made good, valuable choices in their lives. On the other hand, I don’t like reinforcing choices without critical evaluation of those choices. If one’s choice to be wife and mother really is right for her, then it will stand up to self-examination.
I repeat: I have nothing but tremendous respect for women who take the hard road of keeping house and raising kids (and working a cash-earning job as well, more often than not). I wish their job was valued more by our society.
But I don’t think you give women enough credit, if you’re implying that romantic brainwashing is the only reason someone would choose family over career.
—>That’s not what I said. My objection to most romance novels isn’t that the woman chooses family over career. It’s that Husband And Kids is set up as the best goal ever. Lots of romance heroines have jobs, but the books aren’t about how she can get the great job (sometimes that’s a subplot); they’re about how her HEA is brought about by having Husband And Kids.
Again, I’m not dissing people who read those books. I’m merely explaining why I don’t like these sort of books. Their value system does not interest or appeal to me.
We need to give all waves of feminism credit for the fact that we have much better life choices available than our grandmothers had.
—>Absolutely. But I don’t think we should get so self-congratulatory that we think the issues are all ironed out and the conflict is over. There’s still racial bias and hatred in the USA, but actual lynchings are rare. When rapes and domestic violence are similarly rare, then maybe I’ll relax a bit.
(NOTE: the above paragraph should NOT be read as an accusation that romance novels cause violence towards women. That is crap. I am merely pointing out that just because women theoretically have more choices in our society, it doesn’t mean that women are in fact valued or viewed equally with men.)
SamG said: I like my books that have kids and bliss, but I also like the ones where the woman is satisfied with her career.
—>I would love to read some of these. Please recommend some?
So, if [wife/mother/daughterhood] are the truly important things then, why shouldn’t they be the important things in our books?
—>My problem is the lack of variety in this one megalithic-and-growing genre that purports to be the genre for women. As a woman who doesn’t subscribe to that value set, I feel extremely marginalized. I get really sick and tired of societal undercurrents that say I have no right to exist.
This is why I gravitate to Science Fiction and Fantasy. (Sure, there’s sexism and all kinds of badness there, too. But at least I can find some books that don’t make me feel like I’m weird or miswired.)
Christine Merrill said: Hell, Madame Curie managed to have a husband, two kids and later, a possible affair with a younger, married man. Maybe she’d have gotten more done without all the mushy, ‘love and marriage’ stuff.
—>Maybe she would have! Or maybe you would have more than one woman to list as an example.
Exceptions happen. I want successful, world-famous women to be unexceptional. How many world-class artists and scientists and statesmen has the world lost because they were discouraged in those pursuits?
So, what, exactly, is it, about romantic love, that is preventing us from being all that we can be?
—>A woman who is raised to believe that romantic love is the be-all and end-all is not a woman who’s likely to spend her energetic youth in pursuit of discovery, invention, or artistic achievement. Further, as long as we have a cultural more that says romantic love is the be-all and end-all, then women who do pursue other things will continue to be devalued for those pursuits.
Again, I support and value women who take the domestic route. You go right on raising well-adjusted, contributing members of society, and I will cheer you long and loud.
I think I’m a good little feminist, but please, can’t we have a fun set up for sex once in a while?
Word Verif: must52. See what I mean?
The “choice†is illusionary. There is no choice if the role-imprinting begins with baby’s first pink booties.
—>Yes, it is a very hard job. No wonder half the population is happy to fob it off on the other half, eh? And then to undervalue it! That’s some trick.
Yes!
And although I am a happy camper career wise, I still found this article in my paper today: http://education.guardian.co.uk/gendergap/story/0,,2222774,00.html
I don’t want to be comfortable and unquestioning. Discrimination isn’t something that happens “in many places,’ it happens where I work, when the higher you get in the organization, the more men you see.
~I don’t know who the patriarcy is either—because I had a father, four brothers. I have a husband, two sons and a grandson. You’d better believe none of them ever oppressed me.~
Well, I nicked it from wikipedia, but here’s a definition:
“Patriarchy describes the structuring of society on the basis of family units, in which fathers have primary responsibility for the welfare of these units. In some cultures slaves were included as part of such households. The concept of patriarchy is often used, by extension, to refer to the expectation that men take primary responsibility for the welfare of the community as a whole, acting as representatives via public office (in anthropology and feminism, for example).”
(emphasis my own)
Of course, it is worth pointing out that women *and* men are not free under patriarchy. Men have their own burdens of societal expectations they may wish to eschew.
Also – ” Decades of legislation and affirmative action have not yet changed the fact that western culture is male dominated, and that it remains patriarchal…. heads of state, cabinet ministers and the top executives of major companies are still mostly men. Also, women’s average income is still significantly lower than men’s average income. “
So, does romantic fiction – and more particularly the Mill&Boon Bindle was ragging – reflect this?
Who are “they”? Wish I knew so you could go have a Come-To-Jesus talk with them. 🙂 You’d surely give ‘em hell.
—E, I’m in aggreement with your values discussion, especially; thanks for putting it so well.
And what you said about wanting world-class achieving women being the exception is exactly why Amelia Peabody (which I enjoy) is accepted in her society. She’s an exception with the illusion of having a man (her husband) who can/will control her. Even if she’s not really controlled by him, those on the outside will believe that she is and that makes the rest of her behavior tolerable. That, and she’s in Egypt. She’s a outsider in another culture and her behavior can be written off as non-threatening to the traditional role of women in that community.
Fair enough, Sherry!
~A woman who is raised to believe that romantic love is the be-all and end-all is not a woman who’s likely to spend her energetic youth in pursuit of discovery, invention, or artistic achievement. Further, as long as we have a cultural more that says romantic love is the be-all and end-all, then women who do pursue other things will continue to be devalued for those pursuits~
First, I think this is too black and white. I was certainly raised to believe love matters most—whether it be romantic love, or familial love, or friendship, and so on. But not that love replaces or pushes aside achievement, ambitions, personal goals. I don’t see why one replaces or takes away from the other.
But, beyond that, we’re talking reading—not how we’re raised. Reading for pleasure, for entertaining, for fun, for escape, or for whatever reason you chose. Reading about love, romance, emotions, finding a mate. Or wild and crazy sex.
I made the choice—a very deliberate choice—to marry and have children. Writing gave me the incomparable gift of not having to make a choice between making a living doing something I loved and staying at home with my children. It allowed me to do both, for which I remain—even though my boys are grown—incredibly grateful.
Had my passions focused elsewhere, I might have had to make a choice. In the end, choice is the key. Falling in love, getting married, having children, didn’t take away my choices—it gave me more choices to make. I might have chosen not to have children—and have friends who did just that. They’re as content with their choices as I am with mine.
I simply don’t believe their enjoyment of any genre of books influences their choice. They’re much too smart and self-aware for that. And I don’t think I’m that amazingly fortunate in my friends.
Very well said, E, particularly
“Yes, it is a very hard job. No wonder half the population is happy to fob it off on the other half, eh? And then to undervalue it! That’s some trick.”
Why is romance getting picked on again? And by people who no longer read the genre?
If readers are a reflection of each and every single novel they read, what does that say about people who read crime novels? No one ever says readers of crime novels want to go out and commit acts of violence. That’s just STUPID! So, why do they make inane comments about romance readers?
I’d take the damn Greek billionaire in a second, because then I’d be able to hire someone else to scrub the damn toilet. The problem with my fantasy is the reality. Yeah, I want to have it all. But that just means I get to DO it all, and speaking as a woman who just spent her vacation installing 300 square feet of laminate flooring in her living room while looking after three kids and tending a husband half-dead from the flu, I’m ready to say, I don’t want to have it all anymore. All I want is a Greek billionaire, a live-in nanny, a personal chef, groundskeeper, and a half-dozen maids.
Christ, if all I had to do was fall in love with some rich guy, start popping out the bambinos and let him oppress me missionary-style three times a week! Cause all this “having it all” is gonna kill me.
*Ducks to avoid barrage of rotten tomatoes*
~“Patriarchy describes the structuring of society on the basis of family units, in which fathers have primary responsibility for the welfare of these units~
No patriarchy in my house—not growing up where my parents functioned as a unit. I’m certainly not saying that the US isn’t patriarchial. Mostly men run the gov’t. And I’m far from happy with the job they’re doing.
I guess I’m stuck on the reading—the books, the M&Bs being a tool of oppression. How women reading about ridiculously rich/sexy/alpha/romantic-whatever your hero’s type—men equals oppression, or the tolerating of same in reality.
How Romance novels, or this particular spoke of the wheel of the genre can and does influence women to subjugate themselves and their careers or talents, their choices or their lives by reading fiction of this type.
I guess I refuse to believe I write for morons. Though that could be a good slogan.
I Write For Morons.
“Can you recommend a couple of books that have this sort of situation? (Certainly that seems to jibe better with my reality. My male friends are all Good Guys.)”
Pretty much anything by Jennifer Crusie, especially Bet Me, which is a straight up romance with a hero who cooks, and likes the heroine plump. They live HEA with no kids.
Any of her early Harlequin novels as well. All category romances with smart women who aren’t defined by house, husband and kids.
“Maybe she’d have gotten more done without all the mushy, ‘love and marriage’ stuff.
—>Maybe she would have! Or maybe you would have more than one woman to list as an example.”
I gave you one example because this is a blog entry, not an encyclopedia. If I have to list every powerful woman with husband/kids, from Hillary on down, we won’t have enough space.
Don’t get me started on Bill. But if she says she loves him, we have to take her word. And if you say her success is based on her successful husband, I’ll switch to Golda Meir or Margaret Thatcher.
I also think it’s unfair to say that Curie could have done more than two generations of Nobel wins. When a woman does something exceptional, is it necessary to say:
“But you could have done more, dear.”
If there is negative programming that we have to overcome, I think this is an example of the worst of it. And we are not getting this particular song and dance from romance novels.
E, I applaud your comments. They’re pretty much exactly what I’ve been thinking as I read the posts and the comments.
Didn’t this forum recently discuss the meanings of “bitch?” How the word is used against women, what it means, and whether it can be reclaimed?
To dismiss someone’s criticisms of romance because it’s fiction/fantasy/harmless/there are bigger fish to fry seems very disingenuous to me.
Novels both inform and reflect the values and norms of the society they are written in/to. Books have had a huge impact on my life, and the lives of others.
Just think of Ayn Rand’s books and how much of an impact they’ve had on people.
Books are powerful, and the romance genre is very powerful. I think it does reinforce certain norms, and I don’t think these norms are harmless or beyond criticism.
And last of all, to really ruin my argument, I like Andrea Dworkin. She spoke up and was vilified for what she said. When she said she’d been raped, people would reply, “She’s fat and ugly, what man would want to rape her?” This is the kind of thinking we still all have to deal with on a daily basis.
…Enough blithering from me, I think. Now to read more Kathleen E. Woodiwiss. 😉
As it happens, I just read about Rashad and his intended-concubine last night, as a result of some over-enthusiastic purchasing during the Harlequin sale.
I’ve been reading romances for 25 years or so, and my feminist instincts have survived, so I guess I’m not overly concerned about the fate of the movement. I think that if you want to get into a scrap about the Deleterious Effects of Romance Fiction on the Moral and Mental Health of Ladies, the conversation should move in a broader direction – what are the effects of all sorts of “disposable” entertainment on the people who consume a lot of it? In other words, why are there so many g.d. gossip magazines? Why do people know all about Britney and not about Darfur?
However, about romance specifically, there are some troubling elements. Sure, there are books that celebrate family and love and all sorts of things that are rewarding in life. I’m not one to gush, but that’s a noticeable characteristic of your books, Ms Roberts. Other books, like many M&B seem to be about keeping pure until seeded by the hero, who will then realize How Wrong He Was to Cast Aspersions for 150 Pages on the Girl Who Wasn’t Actually a Cheat/Slut/Con Artist but First He Has to Blackmail Her into Marriage. These are wearying. Not so much tools of oppression and tools of depression.
And I want my $2 back.
Another thought…Maybe Curie wouldn’t have done half as much without a loving man to lick her toes and play with the magic hoo-haa after a long day in the lab?
You never can tell what motivates and inspires people to be all that they can be, and I balk at the thought that it is somehow inherently anti-feminist or oppressive to enjoy the love of a man. Or a woman for that matter. Because I don’t think we’d be having the same conversation if someone said they thought Alice B. Toklas was oppressing Gertrude Stein.
As far as imprinting goes, well there is truth and fiction to that idea. Little boys in a daycare will gravitate just as frequently to the play kitchens as the girls. And if you think kitchens aren’t labs, then you need to watch more Alton Brown, lol. Point being, I loved my playskool “sweeper”, but that doesn’t mean I am doing a happy dance over the vaccuming today.
And last of all, to really ruin my argument, I like Andrea Dworkin. She spoke up and was vilified for what she said. When she said she’d been raped, people would reply, “She’s fat and ugly, what man would want to rape her?†This is the kind of thinking we still all have to deal with on a daily basis.
AND, she never actually made the comment people like to attribute to her—that hetero sex = rape. The gist of what she was saying (which she had to defend and explain for years after she was branded as a man-hater) was that within a overtly sexist society hetero sex (penetration) had power implications that tended to cast women as vulnerable and passive recipients (which, when you think of the generation out of which she came, the 50s, makes more sense than it would now—without even considering her own molestation, rape, and terribly abusive husband). Even thought that’s an argument that is most certainly debatable, it’s a far cry from what Dworkin has been characterized as implicating.
I don’t think Bindle is as mad as a hatter. She writes challenging and provocative articles for the Guardian, advocates powerfully for the legal rights of women and generally pisses off a lot of people by saying what she thinks. Sounds like a smart bitch to me.
I admire the hell out of people who can work in the trenches of protection/advocacy of victims without becoming completely bitter or strident. To face the ugliness of that kind of senseless and sometimes depraved violence/abuse without absolutely reviling society, or to maintain faith in humankind of society, is quite an accomplishment, IMO.
So I tend to give people who do this kind of work a bit of a break, figuring that they’re doing the heavy lifting I just don’t have the heart or the guts to do, and if they get cranky and strident over it, then I kind of understand. Sometimes I think that those who are pure activists have to sort of exist on the extreme to keep pushing the line so the rest of us can follow in greater safety, equality, security, etc.
But I’m torn. On the one hand, I do want people to have reassurance that they’ve made good, valuable choices in their lives. On the other hand, I don’t like reinforcing choices without critical evaluation of those choices. If one’s choice to be wife and mother really is right for her, then it will stand up to self-examination.
Exactly. When feminism talks about choices, that means informed, conscious, *authentic* choices. Which is why talking about the cultural values reflected in and reinforced by the art and entertainment any society produces (including Romance novels) doesn’t equate to women being stupid or sheep.
We’re ALL shaped by and part of ideology, else society would be incomprehensible to us (think about how jokes are funny only within certain cultural contexts, for example). Whether it’s pink booties or the wisdom of free market competition or intellectual property rights, it’s all about what we do and don’t value, and how our cultural artifacts reflect and reinforce those values.
And, as has been discussed many times on this site, among many, many intelligent women, we ALL struggle with the values of our society, some of which we accept without question, others which we’re trying to outgrow, some we accept despite ourselves, and some we outright rebel against (although even in that there seems to be some recognition of their power). I know, for example, that I am influenced by advertising, despite the fact that I think I’m reasonably intelligent and independent. I know that I’m not influenced by a single book (I think that ‘one book influences one person’ argument is another red herring), but I also know there are books I can’t stand to read and others that feel quite comfortable to me. And that’s not just about the plot or the prose style.
That these discussions seem to hit such a hot spot with many of us (despite what “side” we come out on) is IMO ample evidence of the importance of cultural values and the influence of *ideas* in shaping those values.
So, what, exactly, is it, about romantic love, that is preventing us from being all that we can be?
—>A woman who is raised to believe that romantic love is the be-all and end-all is not a woman who’s likely to spend her energetic youth in pursuit of discovery, invention, or artistic achievement. Further, as long as we have a cultural more that says romantic love is the be-all and end-all, then women who do pursue other things will continue to be devalued for those pursuits.
Everyone seems to have missed the fact that for every woman who has fallen in love with a man, gotten married and had kids, there’s a man who has spent some of his youth in energetic pursuit of love and domestic bliss, as well. Problem with feminism as a science is that they consider men a control group, when they’re as much a variable as anything else.
“Yes, it is a very hard job. No wonder half the population is happy to fob it off on the other half, eh? And then to undervalue it! That’s some trick.â€
I tend to think the feminist movement itself has contributed to the devaluation of unpaid domestic labor, which in turn allows men to avoid housework and childcare even when their wives work outside the home, increasing an already heavy burden for women. Just keep telling women it’s not worth doing, and in a few more generations, no one’s going to be willing to do it.
My grandmother (97 years old) was the quintessential modern woman. She was married (to a much younger man, I might add), raised three kids, ran a household and was postmistress of a small prairie town. She had it all—including days that started at 6 a.m. and ended at midnight.
In Canada recently, a wrongful death civil suit resulted in a “patriarchal” court system finally putting a dollar value on the unpaid labor of a “farm wife”. IIRC, the number was over $100 thousand a year. And as glib as my previous comment was, I know if my husband had to pay someone to do the shit I do around our house, it would cost him more than he makes.
The “choice†is illusionary. There is no choice if the role-imprinting begins with baby’s first pink booties.
So we’re all doomed then. Why would you then begrudge us our stupid-ass, delightful, unrealistic, fictional escape mechanisms? You think I was reading Jane Feather when I was in freaking nappies? If the damage is done in infancy, then it’s done, and no amount of “Pirate’s Luscious Booty” is going to doom me to a life of servitude and patriarchal oppession.
And BTW, when I was a kid, I played with Lego and my dad’s wrench set. Didn’t even own a Barbie. And I think Bratz are the devil.
“Novels both inform and reflect the values and norms of the society they are written in/to. Books have had a huge impact on my life, and the lives of others.”
You’re right, books are very powerful things. I could point to several that changed my life (and not always for the better).
But that was because of me, not the books themselves.
I fell into the trap of believing in the “perfect woman, wife, and mother” as a girl, but it wasn’t because of the books I was reading. It was because of my family life. The books reflected that image, but they didn’t create it.
I think it all comes down to family, and what children are taught. I was so susceptible to the “perfect woman” model that my first romance novels espoused because the image was already in my head. If I had been encouraged to be a strong, opinionated bitchlet, I doubt a bunch of romance novels would have changed my mind.
Books, however powerful, cannot change who a person is – unless that person lets them.
*steps off soapbox*
Christine Merrill said
Exactly!!! As samantha says a bit later,
But frankly, regardless of all this… I just fell in love with cecilia for this:
Frankly, I’m not trying to bash anyone whose choices don’t include children or marriage simply because those were my choices. Because for me the whole point is that everyone’s choices should be respected by everyone else. Otherwise there’s no point in struggling for equality, is there?
Well, yeah, Ann. Honestly, I thought when I sent this article in it was for all of us to have a big laugh at the crazy newspaper people trying to stir up a “controversy”. (“The Guardian” is especially good at these fake excitement.)
It is completely nonsensical, to me, to look at certain Harlequin lines that are tailor-made to present a particular lifestyle and ask them whether they’re “reflecting contemporary society” or if the women are getting equal pay or whatever. There is a huge element of fantasy in romance, albeit one that interacts with recognizable societies, but you’ve just gotta admit that there aren’t that many boss + secretary relationships in the world that end in happy marriage with a mansion.
You know how I look at it? I look at it as a narrow-minded viewpoint that wishes to deny our humanity and the inclinations of the human imagination in a typically harmless fashion. Time and time again it’s shown that humans are not only interested in things that, through evolutions of intellectual thought and values, are deemed socially acceptable. Violence, sexual perversions, oppression or exclusion of the “other”, whether through gender, class, race etc. all of it has been with us, and will continue to exist in various forms until the earth goes kaboom. Depending on the society these fall along a scale of most to least offensive; it’s also generally acknowledged that for some the level of harm and offensiveness largely has to do with how and in what forum they are presented.
Through creativity and the development of the arts we’ve been able to satisfy these impulses in fairly harmless ways. More importantly these various media are transparently over-the-top, campy and, let’s face it, executed in an average fashion. In other words, The Fantastic Four isn’t trying to be The Iliad and The Frito Lays CEOs Secret Mistress isn’t trying to be a Philip Roth novel (God forbid).
Harlequin, as a company, has already “moved on”. They have Blaze and Desire and all sorts of different lines that cater to all kinds of different tastes and values. They keep the Sheikhs and Australian cowboys because, like someone posted earlier, some people just want a fun romance. For some that definition of “fun” does not include female CEOs, butt-kicking CIA agents, or whatever more modern variation would reassure all the hand wringers.
Criticism of those texts is cool. Critical thinking is never bad and to gain a better understanding of what a book is doing, and what and why one responds to it can only improve self-knowledge and one’s reading experience. I think it is just as cool if one’s dippy reading material supports a “patriarchal” world view according to one school of thought, you’re aware of it, you still enjoy it and (shock! horror!) you haven’t felt any recent inclination to give up your right to vote. I know that may seem disturbing to some, but until it is proven on more than a theoretical level that such books are paving the way back to the 18th century, I’m going to dismiss it.
It’s predictable to think that if you have a certain philosophy in life then everything you do must or should logically fall in line with that, and if it doesn’t then something is *wrong*. No matter how harmless it may be (like 150 page over-the-top romance novels) or how cognisant you are of the line between fiction and reality, you and the books you enjoy are somehow still begging for ridicule because the *critics* don’t get it.
I call bullshit. Human beings are ambiguous and contradictory by nature. We’re not robots.
O.k., if you like historicals, I think there are a couple of Jayne Anne Krentz that the lady doesn’t stop her work. I am drawing a blank on the titles though. There is a ‘horrid’ romance writer whose new DH does not stop her from writing and gets angry at critics of her work. There is one where a lady investigated men for other ladies and it doesn’t seem to me that she stops at the end of the book. I don’t remember if babies in those two. There was a series of 3 “Wicked Widow” was the first one and the lady in that one goes through 2 or 3 careers and ends up helping her spouse in his detective business. I don’t think she has a kid either and she doesn’t stop working.
For Futuristic, there is ALWAYS “In Death’s”, a series by JD Robb/Nora Roberts. Eve (the heroine) is not oppressed by anyone…ever…or there will be ass to kick.
I’m just trying to pull these out of the air. I think Julie Garwood has some contemporary ones(Mercy, Shadow Dance, Slow Burn, Killjoy and Murder List) where the heroine is employed in male-dominated fields and I don’t recall them stopping because of a baby or wedding. Linda Howard’s Mr. Perfect; I don’t believe they had babies. She certainly didn’t quit her job. LH’s “Kiss Me While I Sleep” has an assassin as the heroine. She does reform and doesn’t kill anymore….but she certainly excelled in a male-dominated field and I don’t believe she starts sitting at home knitting booties.
I’m sorry I don’t have all the titles. I just put a bunch of books into storage, so I don’t have ready access to get the details.
Sam
The gist of what she was saying (which she had to defend and explain for years after she was branded as a man-hater) was that within a overtly sexist society hetero sex (penetration) had power implications that tended to cast women as vulnerable and passive recipients…
I think there are power implications even without an overtly sexist society—one reason I don’t buy the argument some have expounded that m/m romance is popular because there is no inherent power imbalance. There is the penetrator and the penetratee—being a willing recipient will always require a degree of trust.
But this does not automatically mean we should view mothers and wives as victims of oppression, either.
What kind of society are we actually advocating here? If we scorn marriage and childbearing as beneath the educated, intelligent woman, whose responsibility do those tasks become? If all the smartest and most successful of us decide to stop having babies, well, check back in a couple of generations and let me know how it’s working out, would you? I bet there won’t be any Margaret Thatchers or Marie Curies in a hundred years. No Einsteins, either.
If I get the gist of what some are implying, we should just eschew the whole baby thing, and let the men figure out some way to have them without us? Or maybe we should stop demeaning and belittling the one thing we can do that they can’t.
hmm… interesting post. (And my first one to reply to! Yay!)
I will start out by saying that I define myself as a feminist. I will also say that I read and enjoy romance novels greatly. So… I guess I’m caught between both viewpoints?
As someone who is looking to start a graduate degree in English Literature, the notion that romance readers are dumb and/or illiterate is laughable.
However, I don’t think she was saying women are raped because of romance fiction. Nor do I think she is saying that romance fiction is even a main cause of women’s oppression. I think she was getting at, firstly the almost exclusively hetero-normative nature of the fiction (a valid critique), but also that identity is larely defined by myth. Is the myths and stories that we read, and teach ourselves are desireable, are male-dominated and male-dominating… well, it doesn’t help.
I think gender critique is important both for and within romance writing and readership. As a genre that focuses on male-female relationships, it is both interesting and important to examine the dynamics of those relationships, who holds power, and what power they hold.
All that said, I still read romance fiction. A lot. And with intelligent, educated, and “liberated” women both reading and talking about romance fiction (like we do here), the crtitical eye that is focused on the genre is good. Both for the readership, and also the writing, of romance fiction.
Robin, amen on the Dworkin comments (and the “strident” stuff. Why do “shrill” and “strident” always come up when a woman says something polarizing? It reminds me of a Joanna Russ poem).
This discussion is awesome.
But this does not automatically mean we should view mothers and wives as victims of oppression, either.
ITA.
What kind of society are we actually advocating here?
I think there tends to be broad agreement—here, at least—that we want a society in which men and women can make authentic and independent choices about their lives. That women choose to marry and have children because that’s what they want, not because they don’t have access to something else or because that’s what their parents expect of them. That women choose to pursue a certain career path do because that’s what they want, and not because they feel that’s the only route to autonomy and power, or because that’s what their parents expect of them.
I had a male student once, a University senior, who basically did everything he could to fail my class and piss me off in the process, openly flouting course policies in completely inexplicable ways. Finally, after trying to get this kid to do what he needed to pass the class, I got him to confess that his parents expected him to go to medical school upon graduation, and he just didn’t want to do it, so much that he was willing to fail my class to forestall that fate. That he felt so constrained by parental expectations that he felt that was his only choice really saddened me.
So whether it’s parents or patriarchy or capitalism or whatever, I think we’re all arguing for choice as something we make with the fewest possible obstacles.
I honestly haven’t seen anyone arguing that women shouldn’t be SAHM’s or that marriage and family are unimportant, or that women who enjoy hetero sex are oppressed victims.
But I do think that some of us are arguing that hetero-married SAHMs and childless lesbians are both empowered through critical examination of our cultural values as expressed in, among other things, our entertainment. That by paying attention to these things we can regularly check our progress. And that paying attention isn’t about equating what happens in books to RL situations, because, we often enjoy scenarios in books we would never embrace in RL, but about doing the same kind of digging and symbolic analysis we likely do every day in our own lives (about our relationships, about our life choices, our dreams, etc.).
As someone commented earlier, just look at all the attention on Britney Spears in the gossip mags/tv shows. And what is so fascinating about Britney? Why her mothering skills, of course. Is she a horrible mother, or is she just a young woman who doesn’t know any better? Is she a spoiled brat who expects everyone to jump when she snaps her fingers, or is she bipolar and unmedicated? IMO all of this talk-talk about Spears is reflective of so many conflicted ideas we have about family, about celebrity, about female sexuality, about marriage (remember how Kevin Federline was nothing more than flotsam to most people when he married Spears, and now people are praying he keeps the kids??). And while I desperately wish there was more attention to the Katrina victims or Darfur or a hundred other issues, I think people are invested in Spears because she’s seen as both reflective and subversive of certain values with which our society continues to struggle. As Romance novels are, and video games, and literary novels, and television shows, and every other form of cultural expression we react to in both positive and negative ways.
“But I do think that some of us are arguing that hetero-married SAHMs and childless lesbians are both empowered through critical examination of our cultural values as expressed in, among other things, our entertainment. That by paying attention to these things we can regularly check our progress. And that paying attention isn’t about equating what happens in books to RL situations, because, we often enjoy scenarios in books we would never embrace in RL, but about doing the same kind of digging and symbolic analysis we likely do every day in our own lives (about our relationships, about our life choices, our dreams, etc.).”
Amen, Robin. Amen.
Focusing a critical gaze on our fiction, even fiction we love and enjoy, and regognising the problems therein can only be a good thing. Both for ourselves, as readers and as human beings, and for the genre.
Are there problematic elements in the romance genre, as it currently exists? Yes. Does that mean we need to throw out the genre entirely and go read something else? No.
It means we have to have discussions like this one.
It means we have to have discussions like this one.
Yes, because inevitably (and thankfully!) we won’t all agree on any one interpretation of a text or a series of texts or even an issue. And some of the things we uncover and look at we won’t really know what to make of (nor should we feel we need to deliver any verdict). A lot of it will be just plain interesting, neither good nor bad, constructive or destructive. Much of it will be ambiguous and contradictory and self-conflicted. Which—for me, at least—is where the real fun of textual interpretation and analytical debate lies. Not in the potential answers, but in the questions and the discussions and the process of discovery.